Italy Biography

After 64 years, Mezzabotte Coletta, a retired truck driver for a Toronto macaroni factory, is retuning to his native Italia. In his native village of Supino is a rundown villa bought sight unseen by Mezzabotte Coletta 's daughter Maria - an olive branch after years of family struggle. While she and her husband breathe in the chatter of local tradesmen, the fragrant offerings of well-wishing neighbors, and the aroma of fine wine, her father awaits in Canada, anticipating the day he will again touch Italian soil.

The ingenious artist we know as Michelangelo lived during the Renaissance in Northern Italy, and you could say that he was indeed a Renaissance man - he was a painter, sculptor, poet, and engineer all rolled up into one. Even though it has been some 450 years since his passing, his legacy remains one of the strongest on record. If the burgeoning art student of today wishes to learn from the best, he takes his notes directly from Michelangelo.

In 1967, veteran travel writer Eric Newby and his heroic wife, Wanda, fulfilled their dream of a return to life in the Italian hills where they first met during World War II. But this fulfillment would not come easy. The dream materialised in the form of I Castagni ('The Chestnuts'), a small, decrepit farmhouse with no roof, an abandoned septic tank and its own indigenous wildlife reluctant to give up their home. But in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the border of Liguria and Northern Tuscany, this ramshackle house would soon become a hub of love, friendship and activity.

Mussolini has rarely been taken seriously as a totalitarian dictator; Hitler and Stalin have always cast too long a shadow. But what was a negative judgement on the Duce, considered innocuous and ineffective, has begun to work to his advantage. As has occurred with many other European dictators, present-day popular memory of Mussolini is increasingly indulgent; in Italy and elsewhere he is remembered as a strong, decisive leader. Mussolini in Myth and Memory argues against this rehabilitation.

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective - inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city - while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

La figura di Caligola è estremamente complessa: passato alla storia come imperatore folle, Caligola è divenuto esempio di tiranno che non conosce limite ai suoi più turpi desideri. Ma la vita dell'imperatore cela luci e ombre: l'infanzia travagliata, la persecuzione di Tiberio e poi l'adozione da parte di quest'ultimo, l'inaspettata ascesa al potere, l'amore dei cittadini nei suoi confronti. Poi la malattia, la follia e, infine, la morte violenta, lo hanno consacrato come uno dei peggiori tiranni che la storia abbia mai conosciuto.

In 1787, Lucia, the beautiful 16-year-old daughter of a prominent Venetian statesman, is married off to Alvise Mocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. But their life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed when Venice falls to Bonaparte.

Benito Mussolini è stato una delle figure centrali del '900...

Tiberio è una delle figure più complesse della storia dell’Antica Roma, e proprio per questo anche una delle più affascinanti, perché i contrasti che vivono in lui possono lasciare addirittura spiazzati. Questa biografia cerca di coglierne tutti gli aspetti, sia positivi che negativi.

Eroe, mercenario, sognatore, corsaro, liberatore, scrittore, marinaio, playboy, generale, contadino, rivoluzionario...

From a political and military point of view, the Partisan Diary provides firsthand knowledge of how the partisans in Piedmont fought, what obstacles they encountered, and who joined the struggle against the Nazis and the Fascists. The mountainous terrain and long winters of the Alpine regions (the site of many of their battles) and the ever-present threat of reprisals by German occupiers and their fascist partners exacerbated problems of organization among the various partisan groups.

On November 11, 1943, the Nazis invaded Cansano, forcing its two thousand inhabitants to make a tough decision—fight and be killed or sent to a POW camp, stay behind as servants to the Nazis, or move into the unforgiving mountains of Abruzzo while the Nazis used their village as a home base. Giovanni Ruscitti's family chose the latter and spent the next few months living in horrendous winter conditions in the rugged mountains. When the war ended, they returned to a village so ravaged by the Nazis that, today, the town has less than 200 citizens and remains in a dilapidated state.

Alla scoperta dell’anima oscura, nascosta, sotterranea, esoterica e criminale della città. È antico il fascino di Bologna. Come un’ombra, percorre da secoli i vicoli del centro storico, i sotterranei e i portici che hanno reso celebre nel mondo la città. Tutti conoscono la Bologna “dotta”, “grassa” e “turrita”, ma solo in pochi conoscono i segreti, gli enigmi e i gialli del capoluogo emiliano. Come la necropoli dei vampiri emersa dalle viscere della terra durante i recenti scavi per l’alta velocità, o il codice mai decifrato inciso sulla Pietra di Bologna.

From the time she first felt called to its gates as a high school student fascinated by Dante and Italian thanks to a life-changing teacher, Rome has been a fixed star around which Alizah Holstein’s life has rotated—despite the fact that she bears no Italian heritage, and has never lived there long enough to call it home. In this kaleidoscopic yet intimate memoir, her shifting relationship to a vibrant city layered with human history becomes a lens on why we look to the past, on the mysteries of affinity and desire, and on what it means to grow up.

Este audiolibro contiene dos partes. Por un lado, contiene 22 capítulos que relatan diferentes episodios de la historia de la Mafia siciliana. En esta primera parte el oyente encontrará personajes siniestros, matones ceñudos que atemorizaban a sus vecinos en el siglo XIX y otros aún más siniestros, sí, hay muchos políticos, incluyendo a Berlusconi. Por otro lado, el audiolibro contiene una filmografía, con más de 250 películas comentadas, que trata de explicar cómo ha evolucionado la figura del gánster y del mafioso en el cine.

Galileo Galilei’s contributions to modern science were so fundamental to a variety of fields that even though he died almost 400 years ago, his name retains international acclaim. This 17th-century natural philosopher is often credited with the invention of the telescope, thanks to his many discoveries using that specific instrument, and though he was not, in fact, its inventor, the myth still persists.

Los cuervos del Vaticano revela una historia de mayordomos traidores, filtraciones de documentos, comisiones secretas de investigación, del servicio de espionaje y contraespionaje del Vaticano, de prelados que denuncian la corrupción y que son alejados de inmediato de San Pedro, lavado de dinero, altos miembros de la mafia siciliana, un complot para asesinar al papa, una adolescente desaparecida y supuestamente utilizada como esclava sexual, una guerra entre periodistas y directivos de la prensa católica, un presidente del IOR cesado y con miedo a ser asesinado.

Este audiolibro contiene dos partes. Por un lado, contiene 22 capítulos que relatan diferentes episodios de la historia de la Mafia siciliana. En esta primera parte el oyente encontrará personajes siniestros, matones ceñudos que atemorizaban a sus vecinos en el siglo XIX y otros aún más siniestros, sí, hay muchos políticos, incluyendo a Berlusconi. Por otro lado, el audiolibro contiene una filmografía, con más de 250 películas comentadas, que trata de explicar cómo ha evolucionado la figura del gánster y del mafioso en el cine.

This is the story of freedom fighters who defied Italy’s despot by opposing the rising tide of populism and xenophobia. Chief among them: poet and aviator Lauro de Bosis, firstborn of an Italian aristocrat and a New Englander, who transformed himself into a modern Icarus and amazed the world as he risked his life in the skies to bring Il Duce down. Taras Grescoe’s inspiring story of resistance, risk, and sacrifice paints a portrait of heroes in the fight against authoritarianism. This is an essential biography for our time.

Mario Almerighi, giudice in prima linea nella lotta alla mafia e agli apparati corrotti dello stato, ripercorre quarant'anni di storia italiana, tra delitti dimenticati e politici impuniti. Una storia che inizia in Sicilia a fine anni settanta, quando il magistrato Giangiacomo Ciaccio Montalto avvia un'inchiesta su uno dei clan mafiosi più attivi della zona. Montalto si ritrova presto da solo nelle indagini e accerchiato dalle minacce, e il 25 gennaio 1983 viene freddato da un commando di sicari.